Michael Brown: When Twitter Blocked a Quote by Mother Theresa

April 17, 2019

Imagine your reaction if I told you 20 years ago that a major internet platform would block a Mother Theresa comment about abortion because it was “hateful.” Or that a presidential candidate “married” to his same-sex partner would call the vice president bigoted and hypocritical because he believed that marriage was the union of a man and a woman. Or that a popular fast-food chain would be boycotted because it gave money to Christian ministries that followed the teaching of the Bible.

It seems unbelievable, but that’s where we find ourselves today – and these are just a few out of hundreds of possible examples that could be cited (if not more).

In the case of Mother Theresa, Senator Ted Cruz was questioning executives from Twitter and Facebook about their business practices, which seem to discriminate against conservatives (especially if they are Christian conservatives).

The comment in question was tweeted out by a pro-life organization, and the tweet consisted of Mother Theresa’s words and her picture: “Abortion is profoundly anti-women. Three quarters of its victims are women: Half the babies and all the mothers.”

That was it. Nothing hateful and nothing bigoted. Rather, the statement was grounded in love, even calling mothers who abort their babies “victims” rather than criminals.

But it was too offensive for Twitter and was subsequently blocked for violating company guidelines, only to be eventually restored.

At the Senate hearing, after putting the graphic of the tweet on a screen, Cruz said, “It’s not just political, it’s also ideological. There have been multiple instances of, in particular pro-life groups, being disfavored. For example, here is a tweet that says that ‘abortion is profoundly anti-women’ and it’s a quote from Mother Teresa and this tweet was blocked. Now it’s fairly remarkable that Mother Teresa is now deemed hate speech. Do either of you agree with the proposition that Mother Teresa is issuing hate speech?”